WWE then switched Goldberg's entrance music, changed his trademark wrestling gear and slowly erased almost every trace of the original persona that made the former Atlanta Falcon into a wrestling megastar in the first place.

Finally, to destroy what little credibility he had left, they featured him in a campy comedy segment with Dustin Runnels, which started with a cheesy gay innuendo and ended with Goldberg wearing a blonde wig.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Goldberg didn't go over in Titan land. His entrance always elicited a decent crowd pop but nowhere close to the reactions he drew in his WCW heyday. Linda McMahon described him as "a disappointment" and wrestling journalists around the world rolled their eyes in disbelief at how WWE could have messed up such a sure thing.

Finally though, someone in Titan Tower caught on to the concept of 'If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.' As summer rolled around, the attempts to McMahon-ize Goldberg mercifully ended.

He started plowing through mid-level grapplers at lightning speed. He was booked to make superhuman comebacks from double-teams that would flatten most wrestlers. He never wore wigs. And, he decisively pinned Triple H to lift the world title.

Reviving Goldberg's WCW incarnation worked wonders and his fan reaction these days is among the best in the biz.

Sadly, though, it may be a case of too little, too late.

Six months of terrible booking has dented his mystique so badly it'll take more than a brief run at the top to make him into a serious drawing card again. Goldberg knows it, too, since he reportedly met with Vince McMahon after the pay-per-view last Sunday to voice his concerns about being portrayed as an average tough guy instead of a monster powerhouse.

Hopefully McMahon will wake up and pay attention (which seems to be the case, based on the last-minute changes that were made to Monday's Raw) because Goldberg is one of the few surefire draws in WWE's current transitional state.